Prickly Pear Cacti
Prickly Pear is a genuine survival marvel. The plant drinks only by night, opening to the desert air in darkness to take in what little water there is, holding it, then transforming its nourishment to deep green with the energizing orb that radiates by day. This is CAM photosynthesis, the strategy of plants that live where almost nothing should, taking in life by dark and converting it to growth by light. It survives the harshest ground and hides a deep crimson at its core, red held inside the green.
This is the complex green that holds life force, the life-giving intensity of the lush forest, biodynamic olive groves, green gold pressed from the fruit of ancient trees. It is curious, holding the mysteries of life. There is more to Prickly Pear than meets the eye. You grow the same way, absorbing the life-sustaining rain and the golden energy that feeds us all. Then, once a year, the reward arrives. In late spring the pads bloom along their rim and set into fruit called tunas, ripening through summer in peach, coral and rose, sweetness crowning the survivor.This is the heart register. Anahata, at the center of the chest, element air, the seat of love, compassion and connection, sounded at 639 hertz, the frequency of relationship and harmony. Its stone is watermelon tourmaline, green at the rind and rose at the core, the exact green and blush of the pad and its fruit held in a single crystal.Worn, Prickly Pear opens the heart. Let the harshness of life be the very thing that allows your heart to bloom. Prickly Pear perseveres.
Sound Frequency
- 639 Hz
- The frequency of the Heart
- The tone of re-connecting and balancing
- The sound that teaches the body to give and receive in equal measure
- And 432 Hz combined - the frequency of nature itself, the resonance of forest and field and the living world breathing
Chakra
- Anahata
- The Heart Chakra
- The colour of the living world
- Green is specifically the green of living plant life - growth, renewal, the regenerative force of spring
- It is not the green of money or abstraction - it is the green of forests, of new leaves, of healing herbs
- The meeting point of Earth, air, water, and sun
Historical significance
Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century visionary, healer and composer, named this force Viriditas -“greenness” - the driving power of all living things. She believed God transmits life into plants, and that humans who consume those plants acquire their vitality. “I shine in the water, I burn in the sun, and the moon, and the stars,” she wrote of this green life force. “Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of Earth’s greenings.
”In ancient Egypt, green was the colour of the god Osiris - resurrection, renewal, and the eternal return of life.
Studies on shinrin-yoku - the Japanese practice of forest bathing - have documented measurable reductions in cortisol, blood pressure, and nervous system activation in green environments.
The body already knows. It has always known.
Organ
- Heart
- Lungs
- Thymus gland
- The immune system
- The lymphatic system - the body’s own river of purification
- The circulatory system moving life force from the centre outward into every extremity
Helps with
- Opening the heart after it has been defended for too long
- Restoring the body’s natural capacity for regeneration
- Releasing emotional wounds and forgiving - processing turmoil in the stone’s soothing energy
- Healing from heartbreak and stress
- Reconnecting with the present moment and the felt sense of belonging
- The particular restoration that only comes from being surrounded by living things
Mineral
- Watermelon Tourmaline
- A super activator of the Heart Chakra
- Green on the outside, pink within - like the cactus fruit itself
- Green tourmaline vibrates with earth energies of courage, strength, stamina, and vitality
- Pink tourmaline with love and spiritual knowing
- Together they unify the feminine and masculine, the physical and ethereal, the living world and the world of spirit
Element
- The life force in all its quiet, unstoppable insistence
- The cactus that survives where nothing else can and produces the most vivid fruit
- Hildegard von Bingen’s Viriditas - the greening power of all creation - “the natural driving force toward healing and wholeness, the vital power that sustains all life’s greenness”
- The proof that love is not soft - it is enduring
Sense
- Touch
- The specific touch of a living plant - the particular sensation of a hand-held leaf, bark, soil
- And sight - the colour that the eye rests in most naturally
- The colour the body recognises as safe
Smell
- Rain on warm earth
- Fresh-cut grass in morning light
- Green tomato vine
- Crushed basil leaf
- The inside of a greenhouse in winter
- Wild fennel on a coastal path
- The particular cool green smell of a forest after dark
Emotion
- The deep ease of someone who has come home to themselves
- The particular peace of a living space full of plants
- Quiet joy
- The feeling of the body remembering what it feels like to be well
- Compassion that does not deplete
Taste
- Prickly pear split open
- Fresh watermelon
- Cucumber with sea salt
- A cold glass of water infused with mint and lime
- The brightness of fresh basil
- Pesto made by hand
- Something green and sharp and deeply alive
Pigment in nature used to create colour
- Prickly pear cactus flesh
- Malachite mineral - the oldest green pigment, ground and used by Egyptian artists in sacred tomb paintings
- Fresh chlorophyll
- Ground emerald
- Verdigris - the ancient blue-green of aged copper
- Green earth ochre
- The first unfurling leaf of spring
- The outer rind of watermelon tourmaline
Prickly
Pear
Perserveres
Explore other Colorways
Navajo Peach
Solar
